A couple of weeks ago I met up with Shame. I was in a therapy session and remembering something that I don’t really remember and “what emotion lives here” and it was Shame. I knew she was around. But wow, like she’s big.
I met Shame the other day. Her arms are like tentacles. She sits on a throne. She’s been running the kingdom since, oh God, when has she not been running the kingdom. She is soul eating. (Shame is a soul eating emotion says Carl Jung). This is disjointed. I’ve been disjointed. I have parts. We all do. Different parts of ourselves that show up when we need them. Archetypes maybe. Some of them anyway. So these parts—we all have them in this, we hope, seamless flow of ourselves. The parts that make up the whole. But the question begs (I do love this phrase, who coined this phrase?) the question begs, who’s running the show? Shame is a soul eating emotion. (Says Carl Jung). So these parts, there are a lot of them. And they show up during all the different parts of my life. Each one when I need her. We all have them. The different parts that serve the whole and serve each moment we are in. It’s the Internal Family Systems model. Do you know about Internal Family Systems? IFS assumes that we all carry multiple parts playing multiple roles. These parts often emulate sub-personalities, and they drive you to act in certain ways. One of the goals, in IFS, is to unfuse our parts from our core self. So that we’re in control. Our parts, they serve a purpose. We just want to choose them. They don’t get to be the leader. They don’t get to run the show. So Shame. She’s been running the show. Been. She’s not anymore. I met up with her. A few weeks ago when I was in a therapy session and remembering something that I don’t really remember and “what emotion lives here” and there she was. It is interesting to me (curiosity) that she’s been running the show all these years, and never told me. All these years. Like 62 years! I thought it was me running the show. But it was her. All these years. Now don’t get me wrong, I knew she was around a little bit. Well maybe more than a bit but running the show? No fucking way. But then, wow, here she is. On her throne with her tentacle arms. Here she is. So where was I? This is the curiosity part. (Did you know that moving from shame quickly into curiosity takes you out of the self-shaming of shame?) So this curiosity part. Like where was I if she’s been running the show? This is weird. I know. But not really. Because when I ran into Shame these few weeks ago, in that instant—it was truly an instant—she was gone and there I was. Well not gone, she’s here, but I’m on the throne now. In an instant. Shine the light on Shame and, man, she bolts from that seat. And I’m on the throne now. In an instant. When we find ourselves, we know ourselves. And we say “I am so glad I found you.” Comments are closed.
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Elizabeth RoseMother, Wife, Friend, Sister, Daughter, Dancer, Rower, Runner, Dog and Cat lover. Archives
October 2024
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